When buying a garden plot, especially an undeveloped one, it is imperative to know the texture and acidity of the soil. If desired, this work with sufficient accuracy can be easily identified directly "on the working dream."
To determine the texture, you need to take a handful of earth from a hole 5–10 cm deep in your palm (if it is too dry, then slightly moisten it) and crush a piece of wet soil with your fingers or roll a "sausage" or "cake" out of it. The information obtained in this case gives a certain idea of the mechanical composition of the soil.
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- If neither a flagellum nor a cake can be rolled out of this soil, then this means that the soil on the site is sandy.
- If the flagellum cannot be rolled up, and the resulting cake, with light pressure, immediately crumbles and the solid particles that it contains are easily probed - this means that the soil is sandy loam, and maybe crushed.
- If a flagellum can be rolled out of the soil, but it easily disintegrates into pieces, and the cake forms with numerous cracks, this means that there is a light loamy soil on the site.
- If the flagellum made is elastic, but when rolled into a ring, it disintegrates, and small cracks form along the edges of the cake, then this is an average loamy soil. Light and medium loamy soils are the most optimal soil texture for a garden plot, which allows you to breed a wide variety of plants.
- If the flagellum rolls well into a ring, but still gives cracks, and there are no cracks along the edges of the cake, then this is a heavy loamy soil.
- If a lump of soil easily crumples with your fingers, preserving the prints of your hand, and at the same time slightly shines, the clay flagellum can be rolled into a ring of any shape, while it is elastic and does not crack, and there are no cracks along the edges of the cake, then this means that the soil is on the site is clayey.
And if you have a desire to determine the mechanical composition of the soil more accurately, then this can also be easily and fairly accurately done right on the site using the simplest experience.
To do this, a handful of earth must be poured into a tall and narrow glass vessel, filled with water, stirred thoroughly and allowed to settle well. When the soil settles, sand first falls to the bottom of the vessel, and a layer of pure clay falls on it.
Having measured the height of the precipitated sediment and taking it as 100%, you can easily calculate the specific gravity of the precipitated particles of sand and clay, and determine quite accurately the mechanical composition of the soil in your area.
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Now remember:
- clay soil contains more than 80% of clay, less than 20% of sand;
- in heavy loam clay from 60 to 80%, sand - 20-40%;
- in light loam clay from 25 to 60%, sand - 40–75%;
- in sandy loam soil, clay from 5 to 25%, sand from 75 to 95%;
- sandy soil contains less than 5% clay and more than 95% sand.
Therefore, when acquiring an undeveloped land plot for laying a garden, and a vegetable garden too, one must remember that heavy clayey, highly sandy, stony soils and high peat bogs in their original state are almost unsuitable for laying a garden and growing vegetables without additional, rather expensive processing in order to improve its properties.
You can also accurately determine the acidity of the soil right on the site using a litmus test.
To do this, conditionally "break" your site into squares no more than 10x10 meters in size and in the center of each such square, dig small holes 25 cm deep. From one of the vertical walls of each hole, you must take a very thin cut of soil.
Mix each sample separately thoroughly, moisten with rain or distilled water. Then take a handful of earth from each sample and squeeze it in your hand together with a strip of indicator paper, and then compare the color of the paper with a scale.
If at the same time the blue litmus test turns red, then the soil is acidic; pink - medium acid; yellow - slightly acidic; green - close to neutral. Of course, such an analysis is not very accurate, it only characterizes the acidity in general terms and does not show its value.
Put these results on the plot plan and it will immediately become clear to you how to influence the acidity of the soil in each "square" of your garden, depending on the proposed crop rotation.
The approximate acidity can be determined in another simple way, even without litmus paper. To do this, a hole is dug at the site with a depth of 25 cm and a small amount of soil cleared of impurities is taken from the vertical wall. It is poured into a 200 cc bottle. see, which are used by dairy kitchens. The soil is filled up to the second division from the bottom and added with water to the fifth division, then another 0.5 teaspoon of crushed chalk is poured into the bottle.
Immediately after that, a regular baby rubber pacifier is put on the neck, coiled into a spiral. It immediately unfolds, but due to the absence of excess air pressure inside the bottle, it remains stuck together. The contents of the bottle are then shaken vigorously for 3-5 minutes.
In acidic soil, the interaction of chalk and soil acid occurs in the usual neutralization reaction, and the carbon dioxide released during this increases the pressure in the bottle, and the teat will expand. If the soil is moderately acidic, it will flatten by half, and with slightly acidic soil, it will not flatten at all.
Quite easily, the approximate acidity of the soil can be determined using black currant or cherry leaves. To do this, 3-4 leaves of currants or cherries must be brewed in a glass of boiling water, and then a few lumps of soil should be dipped into the cooled infusion.
If at the same time the water acquires a reddish color, then the reaction of the medium is highly acidic; turns pink - moderately acidic, turns green - soil acidity is close to neutral, if green is slightly acidic, turns blue - then the reaction is neutral.
You can also easily determine the approximate acidity of the soil using ammonia. To do this, pour 1 teaspoon of the test soil into an ordinary glass, fill it with a little more than half of rain water, pour 1 tablespoon of ammonia into it and stir well. And after the soil has settled, the color of the solution must be well examined.
If the solution turned out to be uncolored, then this means that the soil is not acidic. And if the solution turned out to be brown or black, then the soil is acidic. Moreover, the more intense the color of the solution, the higher the acidity of the soil.
Remember !!! In different places on your site, the soil may have a different acidity, which changes every year. Therefore, one single analysis cannot determine the acidity of the soil once and for all.
Well, if you are careful, then you do not need to do anything, because the vegetable plants surrounding you will tell in detail about the acidity of the soil on the site. If cabbage and beets grow well in the garden, then the acidity of the soil is close to neutral; and if it is bad, then the soil is acidic.
Wild plants will tell you even better about the acidity of the soil, since many of them are living "indicators" of the acidity of the soil. You just need to understand the "language" of plants.
If one or two of the following plants grow beautifully and are dominated by one or two of the plants listed below - heather, wild rosemary, whiteus, veronica field, blueberry, highlander bird, ivan da marya, oxalis, creeping buttercup, woodlice (starweed), field mint, fern, large plantain, marsh creeper, tricolor violet, blueberries, horsetail, small sorrel, horse sorrel, then the soil on the site is acidic. Such soil must be limed.
On cultivated plots with slightly acidic soil, they like to settle the thistle garden, field bindweed, meadow clover, nettle, quinoa, bluegrass, coltsfoot, creeping wheatgrass, odorless chamomile.And in areas with neutral soil, adonis, white melilot, spurge, sow thistle, field bindweed, etc. grow well.
These plants do not give accurate qualitative indicators of soil acidity. But, looking at these weeds, certain conclusions about the acidity of the soil in this area can be drawn.
And one more folk omen - on an area where birch and mountain ash grow well, the soil is slightly acidic or close to neutral in acidity.
"Ural gardener", No. 36, 2015
